“It’s Miss Fox, isn’t it?” He frowned. “What are you doing here?”
“She came to see me,” Mr. Alcott said before I could speak. He indicated the box. “I’ve been cleaning out Pearl’s dressing room.”
“I’ll take that.” He reached for the box.
Mr. Alcott drew it away. “I was going to give it to Mrs. Larsen.”
“I’ll pass it on to her after I go through it. Property belonging to the theater should remain here.”
Mr. Alcott handed the box over and we continued along the corridor. Once we were out of earshot of Mr. Culpepper, he said, “I hope he doesn’t destroy the letter.”
“So do I.”
It wasn’t a complete disaster if he did, however. I’d recognized the ring.
Chapter 10
Icarried the key to Pearl’s flat in my purse so I didn’t need to return to the hotel to retrieve it. Her flat was exactly the same, with all her things in the same place, as if Pearl had just stepped out. It made my task easier.
I went straight to the table with all the photographs and bent to study them. In the one I wanted, Pearl stood in the center, dressed in the sleeveless and beltedstolaof a Roman noblewoman, a gold band in her hair and another around her upper arm. On one side of her, with a hand resting on her shoulder, was a man dressed in a Roman gladiator’s costume. I recognized him from the posters in the Playhouse’s foyer as the lead actor inCat and Mouse. On Pearl’s other side stood another man, his hand also resting on her shoulder. He was not in costume but wore a pinstripe suit. On his smallest finger he wore a ring with a dark square gem.
I took the framed photograph with me and returned to the Playhouse, just a short walk away. The side door was still open and I slipped inside and made my way along the corridor that led to the offices and dressing rooms.
I stopped at Mr. Culpepper’s door and knocked quietly before I changed my mind.
“A moment!” His voice sounded thick, muffled.
I waited and several moments later, the door opened. I think I was as shocked to see Mr. Culpepper as he was to see me. While I’d certainly expected him to open the door, Ihadn’t expected him to have swollen red eyes. He’d been crying.
It took the wind out of my sails. I was no longer sure how to begin.
“What are you still doing here?” he asked.
At least he didn’t invite me in. I didn’t want to enter his office. If I was going to confront him with what I knew, I preferred to do it in the corridor. I glanced along it, left and right, but there was no one about.
“I have some questions to ask you,” I said.
He clutched the edge of the door and leaned into it, as if it were the only thing holding him up. “Are you still trying to suggest Pearl was murdered?”
“Why are you so sure she wasn’t?”
He sighed. “Because I believe Rumford drove her to take her own life. It’s obvious. Something happened between them, they fought, he was going to give her up…something like that.”
“You don’t really believe that, Mr. Culpepper.”
He looked down at the carpet.
“You don’t believe that because you know she wouldn’t kill herself because of Rumford. She wasn’t in love with him.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed with his hard swallow. “What makes you say that?”
“She was in love with you.”
He looked up. His eyes brimmed with sorrow and something else. Remorse?
“Mr. Alcott showed me the letter Pearl wrote expressing her love to the unnamed recipient. She never got a chance to give it to him, which is a tragic shame.”
He swallowed again. “I just read it myself. It was very moving. Why do you think I am the man she was writing to?”
